Life is Delicious- Mindset Mastery, Midlife Empowerment, Joy, Purpose, Vitality, Inspiration, Women's Health

13: 9 Ways to Dial Up Optimism and Lower Daily Stress with Rachel Posner

• Marnie Martin- Happiness Expert, Vitality Coach, Mindfulness Mentor, Best Selling Author • Season 1 • Episode 13

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What if the secret to living with more joy isn't trying to eliminate stress, but transforming how your nervous system responds to it? In this illuminating conversation with yoga therapist and mindfulness coach Rachel, we explore the fascinating relationship between our brain's stress response and our ability to experience gratitude, optimism, and resilience.

Rachel explains how stress literally narrows our vision, making us see only what's wrong while missing what's right. When we're overwhelmed, our nervous system shifts into fight-flight-freeze mode, making it nearly impossible to access positive emotions or see creative solutions. But through simple mindfulness practices, we can train ourselves to maintain a broader perspective even when challenges arise.

The conversation reveals startling insights about our daily habits – like how checking your phone first thing in the morning floods your body with stress hormones before you've even had breakfast. Instead, Rachel suggests practicing "embodied gratitude," where you physically experience positive sensations in your body rather than just mentally listing things you're thankful for. This seemingly small shift activates your parasympathetic nervous system, creating a physiological state of calm that makes subsequent challenges more manageable.

We dive deep into how self-talk dramatically influences stress levels, with Rachel introducing the concept of "self-friendliness" – talking to yourself with the same supportive tone you'd use with a good friend. This internal dialogue isn't just psychological comfort; it creates measurable changes in how your body processes stress hormones.

For those seeking practical applications, Rachel shares a range of accessible practices, from facial relaxation techniques that signal safety to your brain, to mindful moments between work tasks, to "screenless Sundays" that create space for genuine restoration. The beauty of her approach lies in its simplicity – start with just one two-minute practice attached to something you already do daily, and build from there.

Ready to shift from surviving to thriving? Listen now to discover how small mindfulness practices can help you see life's full picture and reclaim your natural capacity for joy.

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Website : https://www.LifeIsDelicious.ca ( Podcast) and          

 https://www.MarnieMartin.com ( Voice Over )

Email: marnie@marniemartin.com

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Website : https://www.rachelposner.com

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https://www.rachelposner.com/take-5-practice

7-day membership trial:  https://yourbrainonmindfulness.rachelposner.com/your-yoga-a-virtual-community-member

Speaker 1:

Hey, beautiful friend, it's Marnie. Oh my gosh, I am so glad to have you here today. As you know, this podcast is all about living our best life, but it's really hard to feel vibrant and centered when we are being bombarded by stress and we all have it and while everyone experiences stress differently. Today's guest is gonna walk us through some ways we can get more grounded and diffuse the stressors when they come, by activating more gratitude and learning how to build more resilience in our daily lives, by the intersection between mindfulness, neuroscience and psychology, specifically focusing on best practices for the mind, body and brain. And she's going to teach us how to feel more calm, connection and engagement in our daily lives. You are going to love this episode. Welcome to this. Episode of Life is Delicious.

Speaker 1:

Do you ever feel like midlife has you running on an endless hamster wheel of responsibilities while your own dreams just gather dust? Is the crazy chaos of caring for everyone else leaving you exhausted and overwhelmed? And is the hormonal hurricane of menopause threatening to derail your sanity? Are you in desperate need of some self-care, balance and reconnection with your truest self? If so, then I'm so glad you're here.

Speaker 1:

This podcast isn't about surviving midlife. It's about crafting a next chapter overflowing with purpose, joy and delicious possibilities. I'm Marni Martin, a multi-passionate entrepreneur, daughter and a hot midlife mama, literally, and over the last decade I've been through career pivots, a divorce and a survived the empty nest only to have it fill up again. I spent the next several years traveling miles and miles every month to care for my elderly parents, and my time and attention was so torn in every direction that I lost track of who I was, and I found myself in an endless cycle of people pleasing, putting out fires and, frankly, running on empty. I know how it feels to be stuck in chronic overwhelm, stress and chaos and, trust me, it's not a pretty picture. I decided that it was time to take my own life and health back. I worked hard to reclaim my health through radical self-care practices, recalibrating my nervous system and setting healthy boundaries that allowed me to start living my life on purpose again.

Speaker 1:

I'm here to show you that midlife doesn't have to be a crisis, but instead a beautiful invitation to prioritize yourself again. If you're ready to take back your joie de vivre, then pop in those earbuds and let's go get it. Welcome to the show, rachel. We have so much to talk about today, but before we get into it, tell the listeners a little bit about you and your specialty. I know you've got some really great information to share.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I'm thrilled to be here. I'm Rachel and I'm a yoga therapist and a mindfulness coach, and I love helping people reduce stress, build resilience, just experience more positive feelings in their life. I feel like we live in a world where we tend to have fears and anxiety sort of thrown at us all day long, and it is a real skill to shift into optimism. It's difficult these days, but there are practices that can help us do that Absolutely.

Speaker 1:

Well, I mean, I like to think of myself as an eternal optimist and I practice gratitude regularly, but I have really noticed over the last little while, with some of my other menopause symptoms, that I can find myself in a bit of a freeze sometimes when overwhelm kicks in, even though I don't normally struggle typically with anxiety. So talk to us about the different factors that can really affect how we navigate our way through our day.

Speaker 2:

You know, the biggest factor is what is the state of your nervous system. So our nervous system is what sends us into fight, flight or freeze or holds us in that sort of calmer, more grounded, parasympathetic state. And when stressors come at us which they do all day long we can either see that stressor as a challenge or it can feel overwhelming and tip us into that kind of fight, flight or freeze state. When we see it as a challenge and something to take on, we build resilience and we kind of nourish that part of ourselves that builds confidence through stress. But when our stress response kicks in because that stressor is a little bit too challenging for us in the moment, we lose confidence, we feel less resilient and we feel more pessimistic about the world.

Speaker 2:

So so much of it is. How can I keep myself balanced throughout the day so that when the next stressor comes in I can feel it as a challenge and I can still notice what the silver lining is, what's positive about this challenge that's being offered? And oftentimes the more stressors that come in, the more we start to tip towards that nervous system dysregulation. So if I wake up at a one and then right away I have three stressors come in. By the time I really fully start my day, I'm already at a four, and I don't do as good of a job with stressors when I'm at a four or a six or an eight as I would at a one. So a big piece of how we keep a more optimistic mind frame is keeping our nervous system in check so that we can see the full picture.

Speaker 1:

I have been in menopause for a while now, but last year I finally got my parents moved into an assisted living place and we sold our family home and moved them and at the end of it all my nervous system was in really bad shape. I had aches and pains, I had a ton of inflammation in my shoulders and my knees, I was bloated all the time. There was just a ton of symptoms and I was exhausted and I just obviously hadn't been taking care of myself. So a group of my friends and I took a class on understanding cortisol and I learned so much that I didn't know about my body, and one of the things that came up was how we actually trigger our own stress response without even knowing it. When we grab our phone while we're still in bed, even when we're relaxed and just waking up in the morning, we begin to deal with texts and emails and before we've even had a cup of coffee, we're stressed out. Do you find that that's a common theme with your clients?

Speaker 2:

I do. I do so so much of how we keep that kind of balanced viewpoint. So one of the things that happens when we're stressed is our viewpoint narrows. So I always say you know, a glass half empty versus a glass half full. It's all about the way that we are coming to the like, what perspective we're sitting with when we have an issue in front of us, and when we are in that kind of more dysregulated stressful experience, our vision narrows and so we are more likely to see that glass as half empty.

Speaker 2:

So when we talk about you know, oftentimes in positive psychology we're talking about sort of putting a happy spin on everything. This is not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about seeing the full picture. And the full picture in that glass or in that stressor in front of you is not all bad. But when we are really stressed we only see the negative because our brain is trained to see the negative first. So the practices we need to bring in in order to hold on to that more optimistic state is to see the full picture, to not just focus in on the negative.

Speaker 2:

So when the first thing I do is pick up my phone, if what I'm doing is bringing myself into a lens of what is wrong in the world right now, or what stressors do I have in front of me. I'm actually decreasing the full picture. I'm only allowing myself to see what's difficult, and of course that's going to raise my stress level. But if I do things first thing in the morning, throughout the day, that brings in the full picture. That reminds me of what's actually good. What's good about my stressors? What's good about the places in my life where I'm not stressed? There are plenty of amazing things that are happening in my life, but I lose track of them if I'm solely focused on the stressors.

Speaker 1:

Interesting. I never heard it described that way before, as narrowing the lens. So what advice would you give for an alternative way that we can start our day in terms of bringing that calm, relaxed, bigger picture view into focus before we step into the stressors?

Speaker 2:

I think it's just giving yourself a couple of minutes to attend to what's good so I can attend to what's not, and then I will raise my stress level, I will feel a little yucky, I'll feel more anxious, I'll start to spin through what's negative in my life or I can attend to what's good. So the more space you give yourself to attend to what's good, the more you will keep your nervous system regulated for lots of reasons. One of them is that experiencing things like gratitude and optimism turn on our parasympathetic nervous system, helps us to physiologically stay more relaxed, but it also, of course, boosts our mood. When I think about something that feels good in my life, I'm going to feel better. So I like to practice embodied gratitude, which means, instead of just taking a minute to kind of write down or list a few things I'm grateful for, instead I will bring a moment in. It could be the moment I'm in.

Speaker 2:

Maybe I feel so cozy, I haven't gotten out of bed yet and it feels kind of delicious and protected and comfortable. I might just let myself feel the physical experience of still being in my bed and seeing the sun come through my curtain. I might bring myself back to a moment that I had the previous day, where I felt really connected, where I felt loved, where I felt something good, and when we bring that back in our not just in sort of that list sort of way that we can do when we're journaling, but in an embodied way, what can I remember about how it felt like to be in that moment of connection or calm or peace? I'm basically cultivating that quality. I'm bringing it back into my body and having an experience of it. So the more I can have an experience of goodness, the more I am going to bring my nervous system into a calmer place and then be able to handle the day with that sort of bigger perspective.

Speaker 1:

Oh, I love that. I actually do that a lot. Well, I am trying to be more mindful of that anyway For me. I do find that now that we're in the spring, I try to go outside with my coffee and I leave my phone in the house and I just take 15 minutes to feel the sun on my face and choose my thoughts more intentionally, and that seems to really help me a lot.

Speaker 2:

And choose my thoughts more intentionally and that seems to really help me a lot. I think an important thing is to really recognize that stressors don't have to cause stress. We have stressors all day long. Stressors are just the thing we have to do throughout the day and some of them are harder than others and when we get overwhelmed by the stressor they cause that stress response and we feel the physical experience of anxiety. But when we meet a stressor with more of an attitude of this is hard and I can do it then we build resilience and confidence.

Speaker 2:

So I think a big piece of what we're doing when we're trying to build resilience and increase states of gratitude and optimism has to do with paying attention to actually taking these mindful moments. When we acknowledge this is hard, I can move through it. We sort of talk ourselves through it with a kind of tenderness and so often when a stressor comes in, that background voice that we're using with ourselves is harsh and really judgmental, and judgmental tone when we use it with ourself, that, like you're not enough kind of tone turns on the stress response, but a more tender tone, simply just a kind of self friendliness, like I'm actually on my own side and I'm giving myself the same sort of encouragement I might give a friend that turns on the relaxation response. So, neurologically, when we come to our stressors with just a kind of self friendliness, we are more likely to be able to handle the stress, to be able to not get dysregulated and get into that fight or flight or fully check out freeze response and then we build again that sense of resilience. So it's all about really being mindful about the process.

Speaker 2:

I know we can't be mindful about every single thing we do. Lots of things we do through the day are kind of habitual. But if we can break some of that sort of automatic way of being in the world, if we can give ourselves these mindful pauses when we notice what's happening in our body, are we attending to something good that is actually happening or are we just thinking about what we have to do afterwards? So much of I think building resilience and increasing gratitude and optimism is about mindfulness. It's about actually paying attention to the thing that's happening and, if it's good, letting it nourish you.

Speaker 1:

I love that and I love the self-friendliness piece, because it can be really easy to be hard on ourselves. For me, I am self-directed and self-employed and for the most part I you know I'm pretty accountable for the things that I have to do, but there's a few times I have noticed that I can. I tend to put a little bit more pressure on myself than I need to, and I have to consciously remind myself that no one is forcing a deadline or giving me a hard time for lack of performance. So it's very self-imposed and it's a pressure that is often really unnecessary. So can you give me an example of how we could shift that when we notice it happening to us?

Speaker 2:

You don't have to do this, but do you want to give me an example of a stressor and then I can speak to that specifically?

Speaker 1:

Okay, well, I do wear a few hats. So often I will overschedule things because I'm attempting to be productive and I might have a meeting with someone that afternoon, but I'm feeling too boxed in with commitments and then I shut down a little bit. So I've learned that I need a fair bit of flexibility in with commitments. And then I shut down a little bit, so I've learned that I need a fair bit of flexibility in my day. But sometimes I tend to get a little bit too serious about the planning when maybe the other party would be happy to reschedule it. But I still am really hard on myself for not following through. And yeah, that's definitely something I'm working on.

Speaker 2:

Yes, okay, I hear that that's a great example. So the first piece is kind of a big picture housekeeping piece of how you schedule your day. So the more aware you get of what creates the stressor throughout the day for you one too many things needing to be fluid. But because there is that fluidity, it gives you the opportunity to schedule four things instead of three. Right, because you think in the ideal world the fluidity will work such that four things will be possible. So part of it is being willing to schedule three. Like that's the big picture.

Speaker 2:

Can you have a little bit of housekeeping that comes in around that awareness that one too many things is the thing for you that gets most stressful. So a big piece is where does my stress come from? It's easy to say my stress comes from all the little interactions that happened throughout the day, but the truth is there is particular things that really up our stress levels. So maybe it's the meeting with this particular person that kind of sets me off and then everything after it feels more stressful. But the initial thing that kind of put me over the edge was what happens in the meeting with that person. So a big piece of working with your stress is not just choosing a practice breathe two minutes at the top of the hour, like that's a lovely practice but that might not actually resonate with you. So part of it is having that kind of mindful experience of noticing where things get out of hand and then addressing that. And then I think, also for all of us in this culture that moves very fast, one thing that is really helpful is to find mindful moments, and I think it's helpful to find a habit of these moments. So maybe for you it is the end of each one of your kind of blocks of work, whether that block of work was an hour or three hours.

Speaker 2:

There is a period of time where you are not going to allow yourself to jump onto the next call. You're going to give yourself even five minutes just to check in and notice what is actually happening in my body. So often the reason our stress levels are rising is because we are hungry, we are thirsty, we have to go to the bathroom, we haven't moved in three hours. So giving yourself just a little bit of a cushion to take care of those just very simple bodily needs and to notice how do I feel right now. So if you can get better and better at asking yourself how do I feel right now and giving yourself those two to five minute breaks to actually respond to that. Stress levels go way down because you are consistently bringing your nervous system back to baseline or as close as you can, so that whatever the next challenge is, you're available for it.

Speaker 2:

And in those little pauses you also have the opportunity to notice maybe while you're getting that drink of water or having a snack, to recall something lovely that has happened Can you give yourself, can you make a habit of giving yourself a pat on the back for how you handled that last meeting? Can you recall a sweet interaction you had with a parent or a child? Can you bring these moments of connection back into your day, throughout the day, because that will also go a huge way in relieving stress and again boost those feelings that are why we want to be alive. Right, the feelings of gratitude and optimism is why we enjoy life. But we spend so much of our life focusing on what's not working and we forget that we actually really need to pay attention to what is.

Speaker 1:

Yes, absolutely, and I think we entrepreneurs can fall into a bit of a hustle mentality. But I'm trying to find small windows when I can sit outside for just 15 minutes without my phone. And it's definitely uncomfortable at first, but then I relax into it and maybe feel the warm sun on my face and then it seems to get a bit easier. But it's definitely a process.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think our tendency when we're giving ourselves that kind of time is to also be thinking about what's next, because we kind of trick ourselves into thinking that if we do some internal planning while we're taking this break, then when we get back we'll be more effective. But that is actually not true. It's a trick. If you can give your mind a break from thinking about what's next and just let yourself come into the present, then when you get to what's next, you will be much more effective and efficient. Your mind needs a break from what's next so you can have these moments in your day when you're really just right here.

Speaker 1:

Well, this year I planted a garden and, truthfully, I use it as a bit of a mini meditation during the day I take time and I do some watering or some deadheading, I feel the grass on my feet and it just helps to get me centered and feel calmer, and then I go back in and step back into my workday.

Speaker 2:

I love what you just said about being outside and feeling the ground and feeling the sun on your face. So we get an extra boost from these embodied experiences because we are such a mind-based kind of culture and so it's really easy to go outside and be thinking about what you should be supposed to be doing, right, and then we can feel a little bit uncomfortable because we're so used to having so much input that when we put down some of that input it's kind of like we don't know what to do with ourselves. So what I suggest we do with ourselves in these moments that we're giving ourselves is to notice how do we feel, what do we hear? So you could take a moment to pay attention to the sounds around you. You'll notice, maybe, birds that you wouldn't have noticed without that intention. You'll notice the temperature. You'll really use your senses to notice what feels just generally pleasant about the experience. So that's a way to give yourself something to do, because our minds like to be busy. So if we give them something to do that is present, moment oriented, it helps us to feel more comfortable.

Speaker 2:

We get dopamine when information comes in and when there's a lull, when we're used to having a lot of input. When there's a lull, dopamine levels drop. So if we can bring information in, but bring it in purposely, the kind of information that is nourishing for us, that can help not just raise those dopamine levels and make us feel more comfortable, but that's what's really nourishing. What's really nourishing for you about being outside is not just taking a break, but noticing that it does feel nice to hear that sounds. It does feel nice to feel your feet on the ground. If your feet are in the grass, for example, it does feel nice to hear the birds. So you don't have to feel like there's nothing to do. You can give yourself something to do by asking your mind to kind of pay attention to what's nourishing about the experience.

Speaker 1:

Do you find with your clients that screen time is a contributing factor in this stress response? I know for me I've been really working on less screen time and I've noticed that when I'm plugged in for too long I can catch myself falling into mindless scrolling which I think everybody does and it felt like a break from work at first, but now I kind of feel like it's just a bit of a crutch when I'm bored or when I'm not being productive and there's this sense of a sensory withdrawal, like it's weird.

Speaker 2:

Yes, absolutely. People feel better when they limit their screen time, especially when it's that kind of scrolling sort of screen time. So scrolling screen time is a little bit of a way to move into freeze right. It's somewhere on that spectrum of. This is a way I can kind of check out. So I'm not really present, I just have this input coming in that I don't have control over. So the problem with scrolling is that you're not necessarily curating what it is you want to see. This input comes in that may be nourishing or not. You don't have control over it.

Speaker 2:

And we do it because, again, we get sort of habitualized to a certain amount of input coming in all the time and when we diminish some of that input we feel uncomfortable at first and we just need to be willing to sit with that discomfort for a bit, even if it's just a couple of minutes, and then we will slowly kind of wean ourselves. So, yes, like anything that we take away, that is a habit. It's uncomfortable at first but there are huge benefits. And I'm not technology at all. We need it in lots of ways. But when we find that we're spending a lot of time scrolling or overindulging in the news cycles, you know those news cycles, we're not really learning anything new. The fifth time in the day that we check them we are just reinforcing sort of the negative feeling that arises from the news cycle oftentimes. So it is important to kind of wean ourselves away from those habits and once we have done that it will feel freeing and we won't feel uncomfortable because we have just kind of reassigned the amount of input we need coming in.

Speaker 1:

Yes, that's so true. I've just recently started implementing what I call screenless Sundays. It's challenging, though, because it really forces me to prioritize what I have to get done so that I can enjoy that. So, like, if I need to send some emails or put in an online grocery order, I have to remind myself to do it on Saturday so that I can stay off the screens on Sunday. I've just been allowing myself to talk on the phone, but no screen time or FaceTime other than that, but it's also allowed me to remember oh yeah, I love to read books, and I forgot that I love to write letters to my friends and that I love to bake zucchini loaf once in a while or make a really great meal. I do that anyway, but there's so many things that I love that don't involve a screen, and it's just so easy for us to lean back into the screen, because it's a habit, and I'm really trying to use my time to use my hands or to be creative, and it's really helping, but it's a challenge for sure to change those patterns.

Speaker 2:

But, like you said, it makes a lot of space for other things, because it turns out we have lists of things we enjoy and that make us feel good, but we are spending so much time in that kind of scrolling experience that we lose track of big chunks of time when we could have been doing something that would be more nourishing, that would be more calming, that would be more gratitude and optimism and resilience building. But we've yeah, we've diminished a lot of the time that we have access to and then we feel like we don't have time for those things. But if we look at our screen counters, we have more time than we think. We just give a lot of it away.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's mind bogglingling how much time can simply be wasted and we don't even realize it and our time is so precious. And I think the times I'm most vulnerable to that mindless screen time is when I'm exhausted or overwhelmed and I think it's me turning my brain off. But that's not really the case. It's just a different kind of input.

Speaker 2:

That's right. So most traditional meditations, many traditional meditations, are object meditations, where we pay attention to something, and meditation is a mindfulness practice. So mindfulness is just paying attention to the moment, without judgment, whether you're doing the dishes, whether you're in this podcast interview. Just paying attention to what's happening right now is all mindfulness is and meditation is just a type of mindfulness practice.

Speaker 1:

And that's really what they talk about in meditation right, where you focus on one thing, like a candle or breathing to keep your brain from being everywhere else.

Speaker 2:

Well, I've taught yoga for many, many years and I think yoga can be a really effective practice for lots of things. So sometimes I use with my clients yoga for anxiety, yoga for trauma healing, yoga for optimism. There's lots and lots of ways that we can use mindful movement to bring more joy into our lives. And I also teach courses and in-person courses on all sorts of things from chronic pain to nervous system regulation. In general, my goal is to meet people where they are, to acknowledge what season of life they're in and where they're finding things to be really challenging, and my tendency is to use mindfulness practices to meet that challenge. So I like to kind of take a brain, body, mind approach. So I'm looking through the lens of psychology and neuroscience, neuroscience and mindfulness to see how we can meet whatever the challenges that's in front of you.

Speaker 1:

That's wonderful. I have to say, I've never heard of the term yoga for optimism. That sounds really powerful.

Speaker 2:

So when I think about yoga for optimism, what I'm really doing is setting an intention at the beginning of the class to pay attention to what feels good or what feels hopeful, and we can really use the movements that we're exploring in our bodies to see that.

Speaker 2:

So if I'm doing something very simple some of your listeners might know what a cat cow is, it's just a very simple you're on your hands and knees, you arch your back, you round your back, just as like, so that you can kind of picture a movement. So as I'm in that movement, I could be paying attention to what feels good, I could be paying attention to how I imagine that over the course of practicing this particular movement, things will feel more open in my body. So I'm kind of using the movement as I move through the practice to find a kind of freedom, to find a hopefulness. You could choose any quality, right? Maybe the quality that I want to cultivate in my yoga practice today is to feel more grounded or more at peace. Maybe I want to cultivate a sense of gratitude in my life. So whatever quality you choose, you can work with that through the movements.

Speaker 1:

That's really fascinating. Obviously, I need to do more yoga, so I know that you have a gift for our listeners. You have a seven-day membership trial that we're going to link in the show notes, and you also have a mindfulness practice that you have available for the listeners as well. Tell us about that.

Speaker 2:

I do. So. The mindfulness practice is just I think it's about six minutes and it takes you through the muscles in your face, so oftentimes we tend to tense around the jaw. You could even notice right now is your jaw a little bit clenched, even if there is nothing wrong right now. We have a habit of holding tension in the face, and when we hold tension in the face, we are sending a message to our brain through our vagus nerve that things are not quite okay. Tension sends this message that we need to be on alert, and so this practice that I offer helps you to move through different parts of the face, to relax the face, to release a little bit of oxytocin, which is a neurotransmitter that helps us to feel more relaxed, more connected, and so it's just a basic practice that sends a message to your brain that things are okay and you can kind of relax a little bit. It helps to turn on that parasympathetic or relaxation response.

Speaker 1:

Awesome. So keep an eye out for those links in the show notes so you can take advantage of Rachel's wisdom and try it out for yourself. Can you leave us with one or two quick tips for implementing mindfulness into our day, like right away?

Speaker 2:

So what I would suggest is to just notice if there's anything at all. I've talked about a lot of tips and it can be really easy to feel overwhelmed, Like where do I start? This is so much and even as I'm talking, it might seem as though all day long I'm walking around with mindful intention. I am not. I am often overwhelmed and then I have to get. I have to kind of talk myself down off the edge. So what I would say is to begin.

Speaker 2:

If some of these ideas are new to you, just pick one thing that resonated and see if you can create a habit. So the longer you do something, the easier it becomes, because we are habitual creatures and it's easier to start a habit when we attach it to something that we already do. So maybe you add as silly as this sounds a gratitude practice while you brush your teeth. Maybe you spend time when you first wake up, before you get out of bed. Maybe you do two minutes of breathing to start your day. So find a thing that resonated and make a habit of that thing, even if it's just two minutes a day, same time every day, and then build from there.

Speaker 1:

Yes, I love that. So basically living in a more intentional way. Thank you so much, rachel. It's been a pleasure. What a great episode. Oh, my goodness, I'm so glad you guys were here for that.

Speaker 1:

So here are some of the takeaways that I have put together for you. Number one gratitude and optimism can turn on our parasympathetic nervous system and elevate our mood which is awesome nervous system and elevate our mood, which is awesome. Number two use mindfulness to create a balance in your day so that when challenges arise, we can see them as opportunities, overcome them and keep our nervous system in check. Number three make mindful moments a habit. Give yourself five minutes to check in and notice what's happening in your body. Number four ask yourself through the day how do I feel right now To bring your nervous system back to baseline before you begin a new time block of work. Number five try to find small moments of gratitude or give yourself a pat on the back when you do something. That's a win. Number six find embodied experiences where we can turn off our brain and use our senses to notice what feels good in our body. Number seven try to carve out some time each week where you can go screen free. Maybe it's the last couple of hours before bed or the first hour in the morning. Just try it and see how much calmer you feel. Number eight mindful movement, like yoga, can help to heal trauma and boost optimism by adding a brain, body and mind approach to life. And lastly, number nine, just choose one thing to start with. It's easier to implement a new practice when it's already attached to a habit that we already have.

Speaker 1:

I hope you loved today's episode. I hope it inspired you or motivated you in some way to keep going and create your very best life. If you did, would you stop and take five minutes to leave me a review on Apple Podcasts? It's the best way for me to know that you're enjoying the show and it helps other listeners find us as well. And if you haven't already, make sure you subscribe wherever you get your podcasts so that when new episodes drop, they'll be queued up and ready for you. And if no one has told you today, there's not one person on this planet that is exactly like you and the world is a better place because you're here. So thank you for being here. I'll be back next week and I hope you'll join me right here on Life is Delicious.